I will mentor Nobel Prize winners, academy fellows, presidents, and leaders. The case for the “Mentor Mirror”
I am a mentor and a supporter. I have a desire to encourage my students to pursue great dreams. When I was a graduate student, I thought that my work in speech recognition for people with non-prototypical voice could win awards, and I had interesting projects. However, my greater mission has been to inspire greatness in others. Mentoring is my multiplier. Years ago, I wrote a post stating that I mentor my protégés to surpass me. I firmly believe in that concept, and today, I have had a chance to see my mentees become award-winning mentors.
My students inspire me. They are the reason that I wrote “The Mentor Mirror,” a reverse Individual Development Plan (IDP) that mentors and professors can use to effectively plan their mentoring strategy. One can plan to mentor students to achieve greatness. I developed this tool for the Southern Regional Education Board’s Institute for Teaching and Mentoring conference, when I was invited to be a speaker for faculty, accompanying my colleague from NC State, Dr. Christine Grant. I’ve since shared this tool at various conferences and workshops, but I feel so strongly about it, that I am sharing it again here, below.
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The Mentor Mirror
A Reverse Individual Development Plan for Mentors
When you mentor undergraduates, graduate students, or postdocs, consider the following questions. The key is be sure that all mentees in your group receive comprehensive attention.
1. What are your goals for the students/postdocs in your group?
2. Identify goals for each student by name, based on what you know about their aspirations, and what you would like to see for them in 10 years? 20 years?
3. What did you do to meet similar goals in the past?
4. What do you need to do to reach the goals above in the future?
5. How are you helping your mentees to acquire new technical expertise?
6. What are you doing to assist your students/postdocs with developing a strong record of scholarship such that they will have at least 2–3 publications by graduation?
7. For which honors/awards will you nominate your students/postdocs?
8. Which national and international meetings will you finance and attend with your student(s)/postdocs?
9. If you partner with other organizations to provide some of the professional development, how do you follow-up with your students to assess their competencies?
10. What else do you need to do with your students/postdocs to prepare them to be your colleague, and to be colleagues with your collaborators?
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My hope is that faculty advisors and mentors will take the time to use the Mentor Mirror and other resources, to be active (not passive) about mentoring their students.
May you inspire great leaders, great contributors, great citizens.
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CITATION:
Tull, Renetta. (2015). The Mentor Mirror. 10.13140/RG.2.1.1214.6643.
PDF download available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283517238_The_Mentor_Mirror
Presented at the 2015 SREB Institute for Teaching and Mentoring/Compact for Faculty Diversity with Dr. Christine Grant. Adapted from http://postdoc.ucsd.edu/_files/training/Grad_IDP.pdf, pp. 6–7.
